Tag Archive for: accessibility

Publishers Faceoff to Prove the Accessibility of their Titles (W)

Publisher Faceoff opening slide

In our series of free weekly webinars April 8th saw a session comparing the accessibility of EPUB titles produced by a range of education publishers.
Publishers are now being required to demonstrate their accessibility claims. It is no longer acceptable to simply say that your products are accessible without proving it. Eighty percent of Higher Education publications come from five big publishers. With the rise of EPUB 3 as the dominant format in publishing, we can now demand Born Accessible materials from all publishers. Now publishers are making accessibility claims, but what is really inside the cover?

This page contains:

Full Video of the Webinar

Speakers

  • Richard Orme, DAISY Consortium—host and chair
  • George Kerscher, DAISY Consortium—panellist
  • Charles La-Pierre, Benetech—panellist
  • Joseph Polizzotto, UC Berkeley—panellist
  • Rachel Comerford, Macmillan Learning—publisher (Rachel.Comerford@macmillan.com webaccessibility@macmillan.com)
  • Martin Klopstock, Kogan-Page—publisher (accessibility@koganpage.com)
  • Evan Yamanishi, W.W. Norton—publisher (accessibility@wwnorton.com)
  • Ben Schroeter, Pearson—publisher (disability.support@pearson.com)
  • Christina Volpe, John Wiley—publisher (permissions@wiley.com)

Session Overview

This webinar was based on a session scheduled for the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference this year and it was great to have such wide, international interest in the work of these fine publishers. The premise behind the activities discussed here allowed for much collaboration between our “competing” publishers and this sharing of knowledge has led to some great improvements already being actioned.

The 3 members of the panel discussed content from each publisher taking part in the session: Charles gave a brief review from a GCA standpoint with George commenting on what works particularly well for him as a reader. Joseph then highlighted specific features within each title which make for an improved reading experience for students.

Based upon comments and suggestions each publisher was invited to respond to the critique of their EPUB. There were many questions at the end of the session which we didn’t have time to cover and you can find these listed at the end of this article with answers from our panellists and publishers.

Resources

Further Questions and Answers

Some questions were asked in the webinar which we didn’t have time to respond to in the session. Questions and answers are listed below.

Q1: How many titles were reviewed per publisher and how was the sample chosen? Was it a random sample or did the publishers submit specific titles for review?

A1: One title each was reviewed for each publisher. Publishers selected a title that best represented their overall publishing standards to give reviewers a sense of their accessibility philosophy.

Q2: There are a lot of good ideas regarding UX here and the improvements identified. Would the DAISY Consortium/Benetech be willing to share a full compilation of best practice ideas, with examples, for UX design in EPUBs, based on the audit of publisher files? Effectively, a guide to best designed EPUBs.

A2: There are a number of wonderful (free!) resources available for EPUB best practices that publishers and others can use to get started. Among them are:

More work on best practices is taking place at the W3C in the EPUB 3 Community Group, and these will be published.

Q3: Cengage is not one of the publishers included here. Have you tested Cengage textbooks? If not, will you in the future? They’re making a big push at my institution, and I have heard that their textbooks (and platforms) are not very accessible.

A3: We wouldn’t exclude testing a Cengage EPUB file, if they want to participate if/when we do this again in the future.  But there are thousands of publishers and due to time constraints and just doing five publishers is a huge investment in time and money to go into a very detailed analysis of these books.  Actually GCA has been in contact with Cengage in the past to become a GCA member and we will see how this unfolds as they consider merging with McGraw-Hill, who are currently going through the GCA process to be certified. More accessibility information is available on the Cengage website.

Q4:  Is this Global Certified Accessibility methodology a publicly available VPAT mapped to specific WCAG elements?

A4: The GCA (Global Certified Accessible) program ensures that the EPUB Accessibility 1.0 Conformance and Discovery Specification is met and goes beyond the required WCAG-A conformance required by this specification by requiring WCAG-AA is met along with all EPUB specific conformance and discovery requirements made in that specification.  In addition our GCA program looks at over a dozen areas such as (Images, Lists, Tables, Math, DPUB-ARIA, etc and dives into over 60 specific nuances rating each one some of which may be WCAG aligned, others may be Best practices aligned to improve the overall accessibility beyond WCAG.  That Born Accessible score must be above 80% along with WCAG-AA compliance in order for a publisher’s EPUB workflow to be GCA certified.   We do not have a specific VPAT mapping out our process as I don’t believe this is relevant.  We certify a publisher has met the EPUB Accessibility 1.0 requirements at a WCAG-AA level, anything else above this is a bonus.

Q5: Which of the featured publishers provide accessibility metadata via their ONIX feed (or other method) that reading platforms can display to users?

A5: All of the publishers who participated provide some accessibility metadata within the EPUB files and all are currently or working towards exposing that accessibility metadata.

Q6: Is there a best practice for index linking? If you have a subject index entry link back to one page, it’s relatively easy, but if you mention the same subject entry across 10 pages, is best practice to link only to the first page of all 10 (as a kind of starting point for the subject idea) or to link to the start of each section (say pages 3-5) or to link to each page mention itself (page 3, 4, and 5)?

A6: In the suite of EPUB 3 specifications, there is a section covering the index. Recommended practice is to link to the first page in the range but link both numbers so that the link label is clear that it’s a range. Here’s an example from the indexes spec: <li><a href=”…”>76-79</a></li>

Q7: It appears that testing was done exclusively via Thorium on the front end. Are the strengths and areas of improvement fairly consistent across the backend (JAWS, NVDA, Narrator, etc)?

A7: Interoperability between reading systems and assistive technology will vary. There is also variation in functionality within reading systems. Those variations will impact how effective the accessibility work on the EPUB is. At epubtest.org there is extensive testing of reading systems and with a wide range of Assistive Technologies. When we encounter bugs in reading systems or in the Assistive Technology, we file an issue with the developer.

Q8: Have any other publishers besides Macmillan been certified recently?

A8:  Currently only Macmillan Learning is the only GCA certified Publisher.  We do have 3 Conversion Vendors that are GCA Benetech Recommended including: AMNET, Apex, and Newgen.  There are a couple other publishers who are very close to becoming GCA certified with another half dozen or so going through the process.

Q9:  when you say GCA certified — it’s going beyond ACE with a human review. have the humans received a certification? Or just experience? What makes it GCA certified?

A9: Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible (GCA) program certified goes beyond Ace checking. Ace can only automatically check approximately 25% by machine, which uses the underlying AxE by deque HTML checking engine.  The remainder of the WCAG conformance checking is done manually with human review.  Benetech has been building out our GCA program for the past 3 years where we did a pilot with a dozen publishers and conversion vendors and working with top accessibility experts to ensure that the reports we provide are accurate and map directly with WCAG 2.0 AA and EPUB Accessibility 1.0 Conformance and Discovery requirements which Charles LaPierre was one of the editors of that specification at the IDPF and has since moved to the W3C.  Benetech and DAISY have worked together along with our other Global partners RNIB in the UK, Dedicon in the Netherlands, and Vision Australia to ensure this is truly a Global certification program.  We are also looking to expand our certification into Canada as well. In order for a publisher to become GCA certified they meet the EPUB 1.0 Accessibility Specification at WCAG-AA conformance (not just WCAG-A which is the minimum requirement).  In addition the publisher must score above 80% on our GCA Born Accessible Score where we have over 60 individual areas we report on as part of our process.  We provide the Publisher detailed reports from DAISY’s Ace & SMART along with our Born Accessible scores for each of the areas we identify and score.  In addition we provide a detailed document for each of the issues found either automatically or manually with what was observed, actual code from the EPUB that is in question, along with our recommendation including the code to remediate the issue found.  We also call out what is required to pass certification (ie. any WCAG conformance failure), some strongly suggested issues they fix and finally minor improvements or best practices that can help improve the overall accessibility of the EPUB.  There is no formal certification for those performing the GCA certification; our experience and our partners who were a part of writing the Accessibility 1.0 specification makes us more than qualified.

Note: In addition to Ace by DAISY and the Simple Manual Accessibility Reporting Tool (SMART), the GCA program uses a customized version of SMART to guide them in the process.

Q10: A big issue with Silver / WCAG 3 is the conformance metric.  How easy do you think it might be to adapt your EPUB testing methodology to more generic web content?

A10: Because EPUB3 is composed primarily of web elements – CSS, HTML, etc – the testing methodology for an EPUB is not entirely different from a web page in its current state and the testing we currently do is designed to align to WCAG requirements. The WCAG normally applies to single pages, while our testing covers the entire publication, which is made up of many XHTML documents.

Q11: Are the publishers working on making their online learning platforms accessible to screen readers?  It is very expensive to convert the homework and test files into Braille format. I asked this question due to the several of required textbooks will have an online component.

A11: Depending on the publisher, there is work on either legacy or new platforms taking place to improve the accessibility of online learning platforms. Each publisher can be contacted directly for specific information including their VPAT, the status of their accessibility work, and any accessibility services they may be able to provide. The accessibility of these websites are subject to accessibility laws and regulations and we should be vigilant in monitoring these LMS platforms.

Q12: How are the audited publishers creating Alt Text and Long Descriptions? Is this being outsourced, written by authors or written in-house? I think most publishers struggle with the cost involved in creating image description, so it would be useful to know how publishers have handled this, for successful Alt Text creation?

A12a: Alternative text authoring processing varies between publishers and even between titles at each publisher. When it’s possible, we include the author in the alt text authoring process as they are closest to the content and understand its purpose and content better than anyone else involved in the process. Alternatively, we have also used vendors and/or subject matter experts for this work. Bringing in a third party allows for a valuable outside perspective on the content.

A12b: We use exclusively third-party vendors. The main reason for this is that in our view the writing of alt text and long descriptions is a specialist skill that authors do not necessarily possess. In fact, authors can be ‘too close’ to their images whereas professional alt text writers on the whole seem able to put themselves into the position of the print impaired reader and know what to look out for when they create descriptions. We formed our own view of what might be considered a useful approach to alt text and long descriptions for end users by engaging with a) Benetech’s DIAGRAM Center; b) with the specialist TextBox website, inspecting their carefully calibrated description methodology; c) with a number of vendors offering alt text services and d) a print impaired EPUB expert to whom we showed a number of different alt texts/long descriptions for a selection of images. His feedback was very valuable. We then selected a representative sample of images from our content and generated what we thought would be well structured and clear alt text and long descriptions. We then sent this sample to a number of vendors to see how their alt text / long descriptions compared with ours. Where we preferred theirs, we amended our concept of a useful description. We then selected three vendors whose approach to descriptions was close to ours. The documentation we created to initially brief these vendors can now be used to source additional vendors, if required.

Q13: If these publishers also publish other titles outside of the textbook genre, do they build them in the same manner?

A13a: The process for producing titles may change based on the structure of the content that the publisher is producing.

A13b: We publish Trade/Professional/Textbook content, but there is only a single workflow for all publications. Very specialist publications (e.g. dictionaries, major reference works) might well require separate workflows.

Q14: What kinds of standards are being used for meaningful alt text? Are there standards for publishers to follow?

A14: The DIAGRAM center has been working on how to create meaningful image descriptions and with GCA continue to improve these best practices.  I would recommend you go to http://diagramcenter.org/making-images-accessible.html which links to Poet Image Description Training Tool, DIAGRAM Image Description Guidelines, and Accessible Image Sample Book, along with a few training webinars on Image description best practices.

Q15: What epub authoring tools do you use? Does each publisher have their own proprietary software, or are there any generally available tools they would recommend?

A15: One of our publisher guests writes: We developed our own XHTML schema, online validation tool and CSS and produce all our titles in the same workflow using InDesign. The schema allows us to maintain accessibility features and link them to the structural semantics and CSS. This drives consistency into the end product and ensures that different vendors create highly consistent output. Our vendors all have their own technology stacks and are highly skilled at importing/maintaining/exporting XHTML in their respective InDesign workflows. The key is that our schema and validation tool is used both at the import and export stage of the process. By providing the validation tool, we QA the input and output which allows the vendor a degree of freedom in how they remain schema compliant within their own toolset.”

Note a DAISY webinar on InDesign will be announced soon.

Benetech’s GCA uses a number of tools: “We use Sigil or Calibre to look at the underlying code which also can do editing of the EPUB directly.  For those who do not create EPUBs regularly we would recommend looking at DAISY’s new plugin for Microsoft Word called WordToEPUB which does an excellent job and makes a very accessible EPUB.”

Q16: Is DRM considered an accessibility issue?

A16: DRM can be a barrier to accessibility if done improperly.  Most of the Reading System developers we test at epubtest.org make sure that Assistive Technology works with their reading systems. There is a new proposed ISO approved DRM format called LCP (Licenced Content Protection) which allows assistive technology access to the content.  EDRLab and the Readium 2 project currently supports LCP and more information can be found on the EDRLab website.

Q17: Many of our students have had issues attempting to navigate and use a different  method of accessing audio per publisher.  When each publisher has a different method of offering accessible texts it can be difficult for students to remember the steps for each book, especially student who may have cognitive issues.  We often ask for PDF’s over ePub because we can standardize the use which helps students avoid being overwhelmed.  Thoughts?

A17: I suggest that students should learn an EPUB Reading System really well. The method for going to the Table of contents and following links to the chapters and sections will be the same. There will be variation in the content and how it is structured, but that is the nature of digital publications.

Helping Higher Ed Students with Access to Accessible Course Material During the COVID-19 Crisis (W)

Presentation opening slideThe DAISY Consortium has launched a series of free weekly webinars in response to the many challenges presented by the Covid-19 crisis and to feedback received from our recent Inclusive Publishing survey where our readers asked for more online resources. April 1st saw the launch of this series with the first webinar focusing on solutions for higher education students during this time when their learning is being greatly impacted.

This page contains:

Full Video of the Webinar

Speakers

  • Richard Orme, CEO DAISY Consortium—host and chair
  • Erin Lucas, Senior Director for Digital Accessibility at RedShelf
  • Rick Johnson, Founder and VP, Product Strategy at VitalSource
  • Stacy Ray, Product Manager at VitalSource

This webinar looked in some detail at the programmes being offered by both organizations to assist students during this period namely RedShelf Responds and VitalSource Helps

RedShelf Responds

Features

  • To ensure that all students have access to their course materials amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, RedShelf have partnered with the publishing community to provide up to 7 free ebooks from participating publishers in the US and Canada.
  • More than 300k titles from 100+ publishers
  • This opportunity is currently set to run through May 25 2020, but if students in Canada have different semester dates and require longer access this will be arranged
  • Available to any student with a .edu student email address and in the case of organizations who use different email suffixes, alternative arrangements will be made
  • Books added to My Shelf feature can be launched within the RedShelf ereader, a browser based reading system with many accessibility features including, Text-to-Speech controls, keyboard shortcuts, screen reader compatability etc.
  • RedShelf have a dedicated accessibility team ready to respond to requests for accommodations and samples

Resources

VitalSource Helps

Features

  • VitalSource have made their Bookshelf program available to students, instructors and colleges during the COVID-19 outbreak who may need access in difficult circumstances—at home or elsewhere, both online and offline. Up to 7 titles may be accessed during this time.
  • This opportunity is currently set to run through May 25 2020 in the US, April 30 in Canada and June 30 in the UK and Ireland. If colleges have different semester dates and require longer access this will be arranged
  • Available to any student with a .edu student email address and in the case of organizations who use different email suffixes, alternative arrangements will be made
  • The app can be downloaded for ease of use offline. Native apps are 100% capable of being accessed offline.
  • The VitalSource Bookshelf is a digital learning platform and not simply an ereader (the webinar includes an excellent demo of the levels of navigation possible and the excellent compatability with Assistive Technology)
  • Accessibility features include: screen reader support, visual adjustment modes for various different requirements, read aloud tools  and rich learning tools

Resources

Other Takeaways from this Webinar For Inclusive Publishing Readers

  • Both RedShelf and VitalSource work closely with their publishing partners to ensure the highest level of accessibility within the content that they are providing. However if a publisher doesn’t provide alt text or correct links etc then this makes life very difficult. It is incumbent on the publisher to make sure that their ebooks have as many accessibility features as needed within the EPUB 3 set up—Born Accessible in fact.
  • Both organizations run checks on the content they receive and, in some instances, can reject content if particular features have not been incorportated eg – VitalSource will reject at import titles that do not include a Text-to-Speech capability
  • DRM free EPUB files can also be side-loaded into the VitalSource Bookshelf, enabling students to take advantage of a consistent, accessible reading environment.
  • Download the PowerPoint Slide Deck (3.5 MB)
  • Further Webinars in this series

 

Free Webinar: Publishing, Accessibility, W3C Standards—Where Are We and How Did We Get Here?

May 6th, 2020

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

Behind the scenes of any technology you can find a significant amount of effort invested over many years has shaped where we are today. This session will reflect on the EPUB 3 journey to become the most popular and most accessible digital publishing standard in the world.

Date

May 6th, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the May 6th webinar

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page

Free Webinar: Telling The Story, Better Accessibility Statements with ASPIRE

April 29th, 2020

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

This webinar will focus on:
– The background to ASPIRE.
– Accessibility Statements: the legal framework.
– The criteria measured by the ASPIREreview.
– The ASPIREreview process.
– What does a good accessibility statement look like?
– What are the benefits of an accessibility statement?

Date

April 19th, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the April 29th webinar

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page

 

Free Webinar: Create EPUB Publications from Word with a Simple Tool Anyone Can Use

April 15th, 2020

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

This webinar will introduce the new WordToEPUB tool from the DAISY Consortium. The free tool, developed with support from Microsoft, is a simple and straightforward method of converting Word documents to valid and accessible EPUB files. The session will describe the concepts that underpin WordToEPUB, demonstrate different ways it can be used, describe benefits and limitations, highlight early use cases and discuss future roadmap.

Date

April 15, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the April 15th webinar 

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page

Free Webinar: Publishers Faceoff to Prove the Accessibility of their EPUBs

April 8th, 2020

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

Publishers are being required to demonstrate their accessibility claims. It is no longer acceptable to simply say that your products are accessible without proving it. With the rise of EPUB 3 as the dominant format in publishing, we can now demand Born Accessible materials from all publishers. This webinar will provide a platform for disability experts from the DSO and accessible publishing community to dive deep into EPUB 3 digital textbooks from the top selling publishers in Higher education.

Date

April 8, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the April 8th webinar

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page

Free Webinar: Helping Higher Ed Students with Access to Accessible Course Material During the COVID-19 Crisis

April 1st, 2020

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

This first webinar will explore some of the innovative considerations the industry is making to support students at this challenging time. Learn how students and instructors in nonprofit, semester-based colleges and universities can use digital reading systems to access the materials that they need to continue learning through the remainder of the term. The session will highlight initiatives available in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland.

Date

April 1, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the April 1st webinar 

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page

Congratulations to the 2020 Winners of the ABC International Excellence Awards for Accessible Publishing

Congratulations to the winners of the Accessible Books Consortium International Excellence Awards who were announced yesterday.

Macmillan Learning is the worthy winner of  the publisher category and Fondazione LIA  for the initiative category. Both winners are applauded for their achievements in improving the accessibility of ebooks and other digital publications for people who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled.

Nominees were judged on the criteria of outstanding leadership or achievements in improving the accessibility of ebooks or other digital publications for persons who are print disabled. In the past, winners have been announced at a much anticipated annual awards ceremony at the London Book Fair. Unfortunately, however, the London Book Fair was cancelled this year following the outbreak of the coronavirus in Europe and the winners were advised via email of this honour.

A full report is available via the ABC website

 

Inclusive Publishing Seasonal Survey 2020 Reveals Promising Trends

The words "What Does progress look like?"Our annual survey, looking at accessibility within the publishing industry, has, this year, revealed a very promising trend towards awareness building and born accessible content creation. We seem to be at a tipping point and our hope is that accessibility becomes the norm within the digital publishing world and that ebook building blocks are finally equipped to serve all readers.

We received responses from a good mix of geographical locations including: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Argentina, Mexico, Denmark and India. We were also pleased to receive responses from a wide range of publishing content types which has enabled us to get a more realistic and helpful view of the state of play.

Confidence Levels are Up!

Bearing in mind that those who filled out the survey probably discovered it because of an active interest in accessible publishing, the results in the category are as expected with 56% of replies claiming to feel “very” confident in their awareness of their product’s accessibility. 32% are “somewhat” confident and only 9% professed to feeling “not so” or “not at all” confident. The majority of replies from those in this last category came from publishers who publish text and graphics i.e. richer content which can bring additional accessibility challenges. Confidence levels are also boosted by the availability and awareness of tools to test titles for accessibility, but more on that shortly.

Embracing the EPUB Accessibility 1.0 Specification

68% of replies said that they adhere to the EPUB  Accessibility 1.0 Specification. Most of the organizations adhering to the specification felt very confident in their awareness of the accessibility of their products so it is good to see the specification gives reassurance and confidence in this way. Some people did offer the remark that they “weren’t sure” so there is certainly scope to improve the awareness and understanding of the specification.

Methods of Testing for Accessibility

Ace by DAISY, the free EPUB accessibility checking tool has clearly had a remarkable effect on publisher’s ability to test and check the accessibility of their content, with both the desktop app and command line versions scoring well in the survey. Those who have integrated the command line tool into their in-house workflows hail from quite a variety of publisher types. The bigger houses are certainly incorporating Ace into their workflows but it is very encouraging to see that some of the smaller publishing concerns are also managing to make this change. Publishers from the USA  and UK are top of the leader board here.

There is much confidence in Ace but no single solution is appropriate for all accessibility testing, and the survey results reflected that with a range of testing taking place. 44% of respondents indicated that they had access to accessibility experts either in-house or contracted, and 41% said they were outsourcing accessibility to 3rd party as part of production. 

A smaller number of people are currently using SMART, the DAISY tool to assist with manually checking titles and resolving issues after testing with Ace. Full access to SMART is available with our Inclusive Publishing Partner program, but anyone can use SMART for free to test 2 titles per month.

A few respondents indicated that they use a pool of testers with print disabilities to learn directly from end users, which is something we would encourage for periodic testing. This approach to testing provides an important perspective on how assistive technology interacts with reading systems and your publications.

What Proportion of Content is Tested?

The method of testing is very important but currently not all publications are being tested as we hear that this remains impractical for some publishers, depending on their workflows and content type. We were therefore very pleased to see almost half of respondents said that they test all of their content, and some of those produce a wide variety of publications including text with rich content.

Even if content will not currently pass accessibility testing or you are not able to immediately act on the results, running your publications through Ace can provide useful data to build a case for adopting accessibility as well as information about issues which need to be addressed.

Barriers and Challenges

Significant progress continues to be made throughout the industry in the adoption of inclusive publishing practices, yet many barriers remain which prevent widespread adoption. By far the biggest barrier reported was the cost and time required to implement accessibility related practices, which was identified by both small and larger publishers.

Interpreting and keeping current with the standards, guidelines and legislation was another topic highlighted by a few respondents, with mention of being “knee deep” in documentation and struggles with simply working out which standards apply to book publishers.

Alt Text and image descriptions in general were highlighted again this year but to a lesser extent than we saw last year. The amount of work involved in producing good quality alt text appears to be an issue that some organizations are actively seeking a cost effective workflow solution for.

Other challenges included handing of complex content including math, chemistry and scientific materials, raising awareness that ebooks do not have to resemble the print edition and keeping current with user needs, including the need for greater understanding of assistive technology.

 

Many thanks once again to everyone who participated in the survey—your time and honesty has enabled us to put together this snapshot of how we are progressing as an industry. We are extremely positive about tackling some of the issues raised and hope to report back with interesting feedback soon. We will be back with another survey towards the end of the year to continue to track our progress as an industry.

Procurement: Checking External Products are Accessible

February 27th, 2020

This FREE webinar will provide a brief update on the latest news and advice about the implementation of Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations within universities, HE (higher education) institutions and other public sector organisations in the UK. AbilityNet’s Abi James will share top tips for accessibility checks to make when working with suppliers, and advice for how suppliers can provide accessible solutions for their clients.

Who is this webinar for?:

  • Public sector organisations
  • Higher and further education institutions
  • Local government and the health sector
  • Website owners, digital leaders, IT and procurement specialists
  • Suppliers applying for tenders in the public sector
  • Web agencies interested in improving accessibility

Date

February 27, 2020

Venue

Online—this event is a webinar

Learn More

Event information on the AbilityNet website provides more program information and registration details